Tip to shiny new CEOs: Ghosting a job candidate is not only grossly unprofessional, it's extremely rude at a personal level.<p>The candidate went to all the trouble of engaging with you; you owe them (at the very least) a timely and professional rejection email if you don't want to proceed.<p>Yes, a rejection letter, because that's what you're doing -- rejecting them. Ghosting is still a rejection; it's just a rude rejection. There is no way to candy coat that, and you shouldn't try. Grow a spine, and write that rejection letter in the kindest way you can.
This is the first time I've seen a data visualization of the job search process for a software engineer and it's amazing to see the variability in responsiveness between companies.<p>This is actually the most surprising thing I've seen since we started Triplebyte. Originally I'd assumed that every company complaining about how difficult it is to hire engineers, would be moving every candidate through their process as quickly as possible. In practice we learnt to stop working with companies who were too dysfunctional to get back to candidates promptly - even if it's just to let them know they needed a few more days to make a decision.<p>We'll also often see dysfunctional companies switch to the extreme opposite end of the responsiveness spectrum once they've made an offer and start pushing candidates to make a decision immediately. Better to have been responsiveness throughout the process. I suspect companies still underestimate how much that makes a candidate more positively inclined towards them once they're at the decision making stage.
Having gone through this process recently, there's a lot of truth in this post. I experienced more companies "ghosting" during the process than slow turnaround times, but it is remarkable how short-sighted companies are during the recruiting phase. It's as if common courtesy has gone completely out the window in tech recruiting. Basic things like not missing phone interviews at times that have been previously scheduled or informing candidates politely that you've decided to move forward with other candidates can't even be taken for granted anymore. Candidates' initial experience with a company is typically through the recruiting organization and negative impressions during the recruiting phase are often applied to the company as a whole. I could see it being a competitive advantage to be known for having a good recruiting process even if it is very selective. For example, I have a very positive impression of DigitalOcean despite not receiving an offer because of the professional and courteous way they handled their interview process.
35 days, 23 companies, 4 offers. Is this typical?<p>This, for me, was the key section of the article:<p>> I had the luxury of having a few weeks free due to gaps in my consulting schedule. This time block is something that is a rare case in a job search. Performing such an exhaustive search must be <i>nearly impossible if you also have a full-time job.</i><p>(Emphasis added.)<p>The amount of time off required to do this is insane. Is this how most people do it?<p>Also, I agree that speed of communication is key. I want to be on site within 2-3 weeks if everything is going well. Take much longer than that, and I'll probably either have a job by the time you get back to me, or be too busy talking to people who actually want to talk to me.
Two things are worse than ghosting:<p>1. A company ghosts and the comes back months after (when you already took another offer) and says: "wassup, you still down for that thing?"<p>2. A company ghosts and comes back a month and a half later saying "oh btw we hired a guy". Yeah thanks I figured it out.
Tried to sign up at TripleByte, got this:<p>"Unfortunately we're only able to work with people with legal status permitting employment in the US. We hope in the future to help set up visa sponsorships."<p>I appreciate that they cleared expectations upfront. I tried to sign up on Hired.com once, after going through effort of filling up their lengthy registration forms, which took me several hours, they conveniently told me that their services are not available in my country.
> My job search lasted a total of 35 days [...]<p>> I communicated with 23 different companies [...]<p>> to receive 4 offers to make a single choice<p>> I was rejected 9 times [...]<p>I liked the article but with today's hiring procedures I can tell you that these numbers are baby steps. I have spent so much time during the last two months doing technical and non-technical interviews that if I were to write an article like that it would take me days to complete it. To be fair, it gets harder when you are a foreigner trying to apply for a position in a company who wants your skills but that expects you to be 2x smarter to justify the immigration process.<p>I visit /r/cscareerquestions from time to time and it is sad to read the stories of recent graduates struggling to find their first job or even an internship. If that happens to American citizen with an university degree and fresh knowledge about algorithms and data structures, what can we <i>(non-Americans with rusty algorithmic skills)</i> expect? I would be happy to work remotely if it wasn't because many banks limit the transactions that come from foreign companies or simply don't let you create an account because you are from a <i>risky</i> country.
Is there more to the Google doc or has it been edited?<p>Never heard of Triplebyte, so I looked into them. According to their candidate FAQ:<p>"We save you time. ... Most candidates save hours that otherwise would be spent on phone screens. We turn an O(n) process into an O(1) process."<p>The phone screen is where I can screen the companies, so this system will not work in my case. I reject more companies before getting to any actual interviewing when it is clear our shared goals are not being met. Most companies just want a warm body, whereas I am very specific in what I want.
A related problem also hard to solve, how to find a job as a software engineer for a pleasant highly functional sane company. Let me know if there is a solution.
I find it interesting that the author doesn't mention anything about the product as priority during his job search. No mention of tech stack, product-market-fit, growth potential, or being convinced that a product is filling a genuine need. These are the things that I would prioritize when considering a job search. The author mentions as a priority responsiveness of the recruiter. Also:<p>- How nice are the employees?
- What’s the vibe in the office? Noisy? Quiet?
- Do employees look happy?
- How’s the food?
- and so on and so on…<p>Is this typical?
This is close to what Inwant to build for my own personal CRM - something that just says "you last contacted person X 22 days ago".<p>Somehow I can then overlay tagging for projects but it seems doable
I wish there was a One Day hiring process. From initial phone screen to offer all in one day. Wondering if interviews taking so many weeks is just a logistics failure.
I assume this post is geared towards all those just starting their career?<p>Once you have a few years of software dev experience or even less jobs just come to you (I love recruiters .. use them to get the best deal).<p>If your smart with each new job you can give yourself a nice/big raise. Like 20 to 40k more with each new job especially govt. contracting gigs and at the big silly valley tech companies too.
With the similarities between job searches and dating, I wonder if a Tinder for Jobs can work. By lowering the barrier to entry it could get more of the passive not-really-looking-but-curious workers into the mix.
Wish the author tried job search platforms, since I'm curious how they compare to old fashioned recruiting. Job platforms are those where the candidate is the customer.